The short documentary film, Wounds of Waziristan highlights the stories of those directly impacted by American drone attacks in Pakistan. Followed by a discussion with:

Madiha R. Tahir is the director of Wounds. She is an independent journalist whose work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Vice, The National, Guernica, The New Inquiry, PRI and BBC’s “The World”, The Columbia Journalism Review, The Wall Street Journal, Democracy Now! Caravan, Global Post and other outlets. She is co-editor of a volume of essays Dispatches from Pakistan and is currently a doctoral candidate at Columbia University.

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.” She is the first co-recipient of the Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award, named for the great muckraking journalist I.F. Stone. The Independent of London called Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! “an inspiration.” PULSE named her one of the 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009. She is the author of The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings; Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, written with Denis Moynihan; Breaking the Sound Barrier; and, co-authored with her brother, journalist David Goodman, Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008), Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006), and The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (2004).

Manan Ahmed Asif is assistant professor of history at Columbia University. He is interested in the relationship between text, space and narrative. His areas of specialization include the political and cultural history of Islam in South and Southeast Asia, frontier-spaces and imperial and colonial historiography. He is involved in Digital Humanities projects that examine the relationship between space, location and text. Asif has also written extensively about the contemporary politics of Pakistan, collected in his book Where the Wild Frontiers Are.

Pakistan has been called a failing state and the most dangerous country on earth. Western media has spotlighted the militancy and the duplicity of the Pakistani state towards its American partner. Yet, stories about the Pakistani victims of the “war on terror” remain scant even though thousands of Pakistanis have been bombed, disappeared, detained and displaced. This panel will examine the relationship between the representation of Pakistan in the media and the “war on terror.” It will discuss alternative models to pursue and publish ethical journalism.

Asim Rafiqui is aphotojournalist who has been investigating human rights issues in Pakistan. His most recent project covers the lives and stories of Pakistani prisoners in the US prison at Bagram. Rafiqui is also a fellow at the Open Society Foundation

Sarah Belal is a prominent Pakistani human rights lawyer who has been working to get Bagram prisoners released. Her organization Justice Project Pakistan has been litigating on behalf of families of prisoners. Belal is also a fellow with the UK based human rights organization, Reprieve.

Madiha Tahir is an independent journalist who recently produced a short documentary, Wounds of Waziristan, about survivors of drone attacks in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas. She is co-editor of a collection of essays, Dispatches from Pakistan and a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University.

Saadia Toor is the author of State of Islam: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan. She is an associate professor of sociology at CUNY and works on populist movements and, feminism and religion, in Pakistan.

Co-sponsored by The Sevellon Brown Fund, Columbia Journalism School Photojournalism Dept., Center for International History